TallGuyJohninBKK

We had a thread here a while back about why you DON'T want to eat farmed salmon, which is the vast majority of the product on the market, whether fresh or frozen. It's disgusting and unhealthy stuff, based on what they're fed and how they're raised. And they're focusing on the farmed salmon raised in Norway... So how do you think the Asian farm raised salmon is going to fare in comparison?

My wife eats the som tum in the family... And I eat the burgers.... Though being from Sakon Nakhon, every time I order beef burgers, she wants some of those too! ????

I don't usually think of relying on Amazon U.S. for direct shipments to TH, because my own U.S. reshipper almost always has better shipping rates and I almost never have to pay any customs duty... But in this case, because of the special issues relating to supplements, I thought, OK, I'll follow your suggestion and see if Amazon as the seller would ship my Centrum Silver direct to Thailand, and I got the answer! But, thanks to your other suggestion above, I did check Lazada for sellers of Kirkland products from the U.S., and did find several seemingly legit sellers at reasonable prices. So that may be a viable local option for me, depending on how my upcoming import effort goes...

So.... in the coming absence of Carl's Jr. from Thailand, what's your current, remaining FAVORITE hamburger/hamburger place in Thailand? Especially in BKK, there are A LOT to choose from! At moderate prices, I like Prime Burgers on Sukhumvit quite a bit.. And I know they're still open, having ordered delivery from them lately. I tried a burger via delivery from this relatively new place in BKK recently -- Little Market Burgers. The taste was OK, but the portion was pretty small relative to a pretty high price for a basic burger. The several Arno's Burgers branches are OK, though I like the taste of the beef from Prime Burgers better. At at the higher end, NY Steak and Burgers on Suk Soi 22 used to do quite good burgers, though I haven't been there in a long while. (Ooops! Google Maps says it's "permanently closed")... Another victim...

Tell that to your cardiologist, next time you see him/her.... ????

Last time I looked, there still was a Tony Roma's branch on one of the upper floors of the Terminal 21 shopping mall at Sukhumvit and Asoke. And an Outback Steakhouse branch in the Siam Discovery mall nextdoor to Siam Paragon.

My reference was to "independent" burger places, not the chains like Carl's and McD.... But regarding your comment, supposedly, pre-COVID, there used to be some Thai lady with a burger cart outside Nana at night that the local barflies seemed to like, or at least tolerate, in their drunken state. No idea what's become of that one in our current era.

Carl's Jr hamburgers are hardly what anyone would call "huge" portions... Though like all food of that class, they do contain a ton of saturated fat and salt, etc.

I have (had?) a couple of Carl's branches near my home in BKK in past years. I used to eat there semi-regularly before COVID came along, just for a treat now and again. I had some quite good burgers (for fast food) from those Carl's outlets. And, at other times, quite bad burgers from the same places. Lack of consistency seemed to be a big problem, probably at least in part to the staffing issues you mention above.

Some years back, there really weren't a lot of independent burger places here in Thailand that you'd actually want to eat at.... But these days, especially in Bangkok, there's a fair number of local operations, either run by Thais or expats, that produce pretty good burgers. And better than any of the chains, even Carl's, which was the best of the lot. Among the well-reputed places in BKK these days are Prime Burgers not far from The Emporium, Chunky Burgers on Asoke Road, AGE Burgers in the Ekkamai area, and quite a few others.

"The Department of Airports will open the Betong Airport on a 920-rai site 13 kilometres east of the city in January 2022, having been delayed from its original predicted opening date of September 2021.[5][6] It is projected to cost 1.9 billion baht. Designed to handle 300 arrivals per hour, it is projected to serve one million passengers per year, generating three billion baht for the district." AND "Tourism is the main driver of the economy of Betong, especially sex tourism. Academic Surang Artnarong has estimated that the town is home to 3,000 to 5,000 sex workers, who primarily service Malaysian tourists." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betong,_Thailand Upon first read of the OP article, being a Bangkok guy, I didn't know what/where Betong was/is.... But now I'm clued in! ???? A 2 BILLION baht airport... being used for what now???

Just what I needed for the day... another good laugh at reading the latest Thai government news.... ???? You couldn't make this stuff up any better, if you tried!

"Vitamin D is the only nutrient your body produces when exposed to sunlight. However, up to 50% of the world’s population may not get enough sun, and 40% of U.S. residents are deficient in vitamin D. This is partly because people spend more time indoors, wear sunblock outside, and eat a Western diet low in good sources of this vitamin." https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/9-foods-high-in-vitamin-d#_noHeaderPrefixedContent I eat greek yogurt here every day, but the Caroline brand I use has no nutrition label info on it, and a bottle of Thai fresh low-fat milk (Meiji) I happen to have in the frig does have such a label, but makes no mention of Vitamin D. So I'm wondering whether the Thai producers supplement their milk products with Vitamin D or not. PS - Also saw no mention of Vitamin D on my Thai almond milk package label, so apparently they're not adding it there either.... even though: "Because vitamin D is found almost exclusively in animal products, vegetarians and vegans are at a particularly high risk of not getting enough. For this reason, plant-based milk substitutes like soy milk are often fortified with this nutrient and other vitamins and minerals usually found in cow’s milk."

Thanks for that interesting article/link... I think it's a conundrum. In my case, I realized from info here on the forum that I'm probably not getting enough Vitamin D from the healthy foods I eat (since I drink almond milk instead of regular milk) along with being mostly indoors these days. So I wanted to deal with that. And then, since I won't/don't eat salmon here and don't much care for tuna, I probably could do better with Omega 3... And then there are probably a few other items as well... So by the time all was said and done, it was a choice between covering all the bases adequately with a single multi-vitamin, vs. going out and buying and keeping 3 or 4 different individual supplements that I know I should be doing better with.

That's why I take the daily counts of COVID cases hospitalized in serious condition or requiring intubation as far better (the best available) indicators of just what's really going on with COVID here at any given time, as opposed to the "official" case counts. The case counts, of course, are based on testing that is marginal at best here, and even moreso as the government has publicly pivoted away from doing RT-PCR tests in most cases and in favor of ATK tests, which aren't required to be reported and don't get counted as "official" cases anyway. But when someone has pneumonia symptoms and can't breathe enough to stay out of the hospital, they're gonna get COVID tested and counted if positive. It would be pretty hard for the government to fudge on those counts, no matter how much they long for being "endemic." So when the daily case counts for those kinds of serious hospitalizations keep rising on a daily basis, that tells me, at least, what's really going on here right now.

But direct IHerb shipments here nonetheless seem to get thru successfully? FWIW, my order was for a 200-tab bottle of Centrum Silver for Men, which I got from Amazon as the seller (so it's authentic) for $15, down from their regular price of about $17.50. Lazada prices for the same or similar product are all over the map, but the problem with many of them is, most seem to be no-name sellers of unknown authenticity. The official GSK store on Lazada doesn't even offer a 200 tablet size package of Centrum Silver for men... Instead, they only have regular Centrum Silver, a 90 tabs jar, for 969b... So half the number of tablets for about $30 US, almost double the price of Amazon (not including shipping costs, of course.) Even with import shipping, my total cost for 200 tabs would be less than the total cost of buying the 90 tablets jar from GSK on Lazada.

Continuing their recent trend, newly reported COVID cases in Thailand rose sharply for Wednesday's mid-week report, and the numbers of COVID patients hospitalized in serious condition and requiring intubation to breathe both rose again to new record highs for the year. Wednesday's update of 23,945 official new COVID cases erased the declines of the past three days that began last weekend, when official case reports typically fall in Thailand and then climb upward again by mid-week. The net result of Wednesday's update was that its 23,945 case count was higher than the comparable 22,073 count from one week ago, suggesting that there's no clear sign that Thailand's Omicron wave has yet peaked. That outlook also was reinforced by the continuing, daily increases in seriously ill COVID patients. The current count of those hospitalized in serious condition broke the 1,400 mark for the first time this year at 1,401, while the number requiring intubation broke the 500 mark for the first time this year at 507. Newly reported COVID deaths remained at 70 for a second consecutive day, just shy of the record high for the year of 74 set on March 10. https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main For added context, during the peak of the Delta wave last fall, Thailand's daily COVID case count topped out at 23,418, but the numbers of serious hospital cases and intubated patients peaked above 5,600 and 1,100 respectively, and daily deaths topped 300 for a brief period.

On this subject, what's been people's experience lately with the mailing/Thai Customs process for buying online abroad and then having small packages ($30 or under valuation) mail forwarded here by regular mail? And how do you fill out the customs declaration in such cases? I've got an upcoming multi-vitamins shipment that I'll be sending onward after an Amazon online purchase. And I seem to remember some stories in the past of people's vitamin shipments getting held up or blocked by Thai Customs (ostensibly because the imported "health" products may not be "registered" for sale here). Of course, I'm hoping to avoid any Thai Customs grief. My regular U.S. mail forwarder and the international mail service they use has been rock solid for me thru the years. But I can't recall ever needing to mail forward vitamins here before (a new shopping priority as we get older!!! ???? )

So with an existing, home country DL, the Thai DLT folks did NOT require you to take and pass their rules of the road paper test?

Earlier this month, my turnaround time for an online report to BKK was next business day during a weekdays period. That was my first time using the "new" online system. I also got an automated confirming email from Immigration notifying me my filing had been accepted.

Newly reported COVID cases, both official and unofficial, fell on Tuesday to their lowest levels of the past week, even as serious COVID cases in hospital and patients requiring intubation to breathe both showed large increases to once again set new record highs for the year. Tuesday's official new COVID case count of 19,742 marked the first time in the past week that the case count fell under 20,000. And the number of unofficial cases, based on positive ATK tests, fell sharply to only 13,008. However, new COVID deaths at 70 remained near the daily record high for the year. And the current number of serious COVID cases in hospital (1,390) plus intubated COVID patients (476) both continued their steady upward climb to once again set new record highs for the year. Meanwhile, Tuesday's new cases tally was enough to push Thailand past the 1 million mark for official COVID cases reported since the start of the year, and 3.2 million since the start of the pandemic in early 2020. https://ddc.moph.go.th/covid19-dashboard/?dashboard=main https://www.facebook.com/informationcovid19/posts/522191586065837 For added context, during the peak of the Delta wave last fall, Thailand's daily COVID case count topped out at 23,418, but the numbers of serious hospital cases and intubated patients peaked above 5,600 and 1,100 respectively, and daily deaths topped 300 for a brief period.

Funny, at other points in the past, this same history professor has written that Ukraine never should have given up its huge post-Soviet nuclear arsenal because of past Russian aggression and territorial ambitions. "In the summer of 1993, John J. Mearsheimer, a prominent international relations theorist at the University of Chicago who was no stranger to controversy, lent his voice to the issue of atomic retention. He argued in Foreign Affairs that a nuclear arsenal was “imperative” if Ukraine was “to maintain peace.” The deterrent, he added, would ensure that the Russians, “who have a history of bad relations with Ukraine, do not move to reconquer it.” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/05/science/ukraine-nuclear-weapons.html Yes, that's exactly where we are today. It was Russia, the US and the UK who formally agreed, in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nukes, to honor its future national sovereignty. And right now and at least from 2014 onward, Russia has been blatantly reneging on that promise.

Long ago ceased eating that kind of stuff in Thailand. Same for any "ball" products that are made out from any "powder." I've never quite understood what the attraction is here for the locals to eat stuff that's been ground up into an unrecognizable pulp.... with considerable potential for adding who knows what along the way to sweeten the mix. And then have it sit outside in a cart all day in the sun at 80 to 90 degree F temperatures.

I was surprised the OP news report actually named the operator of the bus involved. Usually, the authorities and/or the media don't even do that! Don't defame me, bro!!!

I think this is one area, relatively uncommon for monopoly inclined Thailand, where real competition in the marketplace has been a huge plus. When I first came to Thailand many years back, I had a True cable internet connection that was very slow and problematic, even in the heart of Bangkok. But then somehow 3BB managed to get their fiber network up and running, and AIS ended up doing the same. And both left #$%^%$ True (owned by billionaire and CP empire owner Chearavanont) and their internet service way behind in the dust.